DanielChem_CHI said:

The RDA is the wrong reference and it is worth understanding why.

I will push back on the powder-first advice. It works and it also trains people out of eating food, and when the drug stops the habits are what remain. Getting protein from meals is slower and holds up better afterwards.

The figures, for anyone assembling their own picture. Keep the original post as written when you update it, and add the correction underneath. An edited-away mistake is invisible to the next person who makes it.

LipidDoc_ATL said:

I will push back on the powder-first advice.

There is a second half to this that has not been said yet. Order of operations matters more than any single choice here: establish a baseline, change one thing, wait long enough for it to express itself, then measure again under the same conditions.

That is the short version; the long version is somebody else's post.

One thing that is still open after LeilaHI’s answer:

Whether the RDA is the wrong reference entirely during rapid weight loss, and what the actual target should be?

OP back with an update, since a thread like this is useless without one.

Update: two thirds of the target before midday. Same total, same appetite, and I am hitting it most days now.